Plants for Pakistan: a game-changer program to offset climate change’s effects
PESHAWAR (APP): Forests play an important role in maintaining ecological balance, bring rains & snowfalls and counterbalancing the effects of climate change.
Acted as carbon sinks and regulating water cycles, forest prevent soil erosion, providing habitats for diverse wildlife, influencing local climates, and filtering pollutants, thus contributing to a healthy and stable ecosystem on earth.
Keeping in view of the forest signficance, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Department has chalked out comprehensive strategy to bring non productive lands under forestry cover during upcoming spring season.
From Khyber to Kohistan and Waziristan to Chitral, the Plant for Pakistan campaign was being launched in KP where farmers, general public and officials of forest department officials will plant trees of different species.
Besides national building departments, the students will actively participate in the campaign in the province and will plant saplings.
Ibrahim Khan, Deputy Project Director, 10 billion trees told APP that spring plantation was being launched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where saplings would be sown through farm forestry, mass plantation and rehabilitation of the existing forests resources.
As per National Forest Policy 2018, Pakistan was losing about 27,000 hectares of forests per year mostly in community and private lands in Khyber Pakthunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan.
Ibrahim said that Pakistan was among 10 countries which was highly vulnerable to the climate change and the 2022 devastative floods had substantiated to this fact.
The government while taking cognizance of increasing incidents of climate change and high rate of deforestation had launched first phase of billion trees afforestation project (BTAP) in 2014 in KP under the green growth initiative (GGI).
Under GGI, he said focusing on six sectors namely forestry, protected areas, national parks, clean energy, climate resilience, sanitation and water management were made.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Department spokesman told APP that afforestration campaign were extended to merged areas to utalize its vast lands for plantation.
The KP Government has spent Rs675 billion since 2017 on protection and promotion of forest resources in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where 26.7 percent land of the total area was brought under forestry cover.
As result of massive afforestration under billion trees project, he said that forest cover in the province has reached 26.7% of the total land area, which surpasses international standards.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounts for 37% of the total forest cover in Pakistan, covering 37,000 square kilometers. The province holds 40-45% of the country’s total forests, which absorb approximately 50% of the nation’s carbon emissions.
According to global research, an annual budget of Rs. 322 billion is required to protect forests of this scale.
He said that beneath the province’s forested land, there are vast reserves of minerals and agricultural potential, emphasizing that if utilized commercially, these resources could generate Rs. 215 billion in annual revenue.
Similarly, he pointed out that the province’s carbon credit value stands at approximately Rs. 100 billion annually.
He highlighted that more than 175,000 green jobs have been created in the province. These initiatives aimed at bringing barren lands under cultivation and improving water resource management.
Plantation around CRBC (Chashma Right Bank Canal) project will bring 300,000 acres of barren land under cultivation, while the Mohmand Dam Canal, a Rs. 5 billion project, will cultivate over 200,000 acres of land.
He that climate change is not just a challenge for Pakistan but for the entire world, and collective efforts are needed to address it.
